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Parting ways from the better-known collaborator in a showbiz partnership is a risky affair. Larry David did it. Likewise Andrew Ridgeley. Now, this clever and profoundly melancholic intimate film from writer Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater recounts the all but unbearable account of songwriter for Broadway Lorenz Hart right after his split from composer Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an notable toupee and artificial shortness by Ethan Hawke, who is regularly digitally reduced in size – but is also at times recorded positioned in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at taller characters, facing Hart's height issue as actor José Ferrer once played the small-statured artist Toulouse-Lautrec.

Complex Character and Motifs

Hawke gets large, cynical chuckles with the character's witty comments on the subtle queer themes of the movie Casablanca and the overly optimistic stage show he’s just been to see, with all the lariat-wielding cowhands; he sarcastically dubs it Okla-homo. The sexuality of Hart is complex: this movie clearly contrasts his homosexuality with the heterosexual image invented for him in the 1948 theater piece Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney portraying Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from the lyricist's writings to his young apprentice: youthful Yale attendee and would-be stage designer the character Elizabeth Weiland, portrayed in this film with uninhibited maidenly charm by Margaret Qualley.

Being a member of the famous musical theater songwriting team with the composer Rodgers, Lorenz Hart was accountable for matchless numbers like the classic The Lady Is a Tramp, the tune Manhattan, the beloved My Funny Valentine and of course the song Blue Moon. But annoyed at Hart’s alcoholism, inconsistency and melancholic episodes, Richard Rodgers severed ties with him and teamed up with lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II to write the musical Oklahoma! and then a multitude of theater and film hits.

Emotional Depth

The picture imagines the severely despondent Hart in the musical Oklahoma!'s first-night New York audience in the year 1943, looking on with jealous anguish as the production unfolds, hating its bland sentimentality, detesting the exclamation point at the end of the title, but heartsinkingly aware of how lethally effective it is. He understands a success when he sees one – and feels himself descending into failure.

Even before the break, Hart sadly slips away and goes to the pub at the venue Sardi's where the balance of the picture takes place, and expects the (unavoidably) successful Oklahoma! troupe to arrive for their following-event gathering. He is aware it is his performance responsibility to compliment Rodgers, to act as if everything is all right. With polished control, actor Andrew Scott portrays Richard Rodgers, evidently ashamed at what each understands is Hart's embarrassment; he gives a pacifier to his pride in the appearance of a short-term gig writing new numbers for their ongoing performance the show A Connecticut Yankee, which just exacerbates the situation.

• The performer Bobby Cannavale acts as the bartender who in traditional style hears compassionately to Hart’s arias of vinegary despair
• Actor Patrick Kennedy acts as writer EB White, to whom Hart unintentionally offers the notion for his children’s book Stuart Little
• Margaret Qualley plays the character Weiland, the unattainably beautiful Ivy League pupil with whom the film envisions Lorenz Hart to be complicatedly and self-harmingly in adoration

Lorenz Hart has earlier been rejected by Rodgers. Surely the universe couldn't be that harsh as to have him dumped by Elizabeth Weiland as well? But Margaret Qualley ruthlessly portrays a girl who wishes Hart to be the laughing, platonic friend to whom she can disclose her exploits with boys – as well of course the showbiz connection who can advance her profession.

Standout Roles

Hawke reveals that Hart to a degree enjoys observational satisfaction in learning of these young men but he is also truly, sadly infatuated with Elizabeth Weiland and the film informs us of something infrequently explored in films about the domain of theater music or the movies: the dreadful intersection between professional and romantic failure. Nevertheless at one stage, Hart is boldly cognizant that what he has achieved will endure. It's a magnificent acting job from Hawke. This may turn into a stage musical – but who shall compose the tunes?

The film Blue Moon premiered at the London cinema festival; it is available on the 17th of October in the US, 14 November in the UK and on 29 January in the land down under.